Interview: James Lecesne Unlocks the Story in THE MOTHER OF INVENTION

It's not a play about Frank Zappa.

THE MOTHER OF INVENTION, by playwright James Lecesne, takes its title from the adage, "necessity is the mother of invention." The play dissects how a family copes with a loved one suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Apparently, not too well.

Siblings Leanne (Angela Reed) and David (James Davis) fight about un-matching childhood memories while sorting mother's things for a garage sale. Mother is Dottie (Concetta Tomei), struggling with her own memories and secrets. She's headed for an assisted living community.

Lecesne approached the Dottie character from personal experience: his mother had Alzheimer's before her death from cardiac arrest. When inspiration hits, "I feel like I'm taking dictation," Lecesne said.

He wanted to give voice to the stories we tell ourselves. "I wanted to tell a story about how people hold onto their stories until it is no longer necessary," Lecesne said.

Memories fade and the future is unknowable, but Leanne believes in living in the present. "Leanne is much more of a present-tense person, while David is clearer about what happened in the past," Lecesne said. "A lot of families have to deny what happened in the past; otherwise, it's hard.

"She's such a hero and he's such a hopeless case in terms of the present tense," he added. "What I love about them as characters is toward the end they both admit to being cowardly. They wouldn't do the hardest thing you care to do.

"I love this quote from Maya Angelou: 'There's no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.' Dottie has a story-how is she going to have a dignified death, how does she get along with other people?" Lecesne said.

Lecesne feels a little awkward sitting in the audience. He's usually the one performing. His solo play, THE ABSOLUTE BRIGHTNESS OF LEONARD PELKEY, earned him the Outer Critics Circle award for outstanding solo performance in 2016, and his short film TREVOR, about a suicidal teen, won an Academy Award in 1995.

"I first performed a show more than 20 years ago. I played a 13-year-old boy who realizes he's gay and different and the best way to deal with that is to kill himself," Lecesne said. Echoes of DEAR EVAN HANSEN.

The show became a short film and found its way onto HBO. This raised the question of whether young viewers who, in seeing the story found themselves all too similar to Trevor, had a place to turn. "I thought it would be a good idea to have a phone number to call," Lecesne said. "We wanted to create a lifeline for LGBTQ kids thinking about suicide." Thus began the Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to young people 13 to 24. The founders were Lecesne and "Trevor" producers Peggy Rajski and Randy Stone.

"It's a testament to the power of story. What started out as a 10-minute story went out into the world and we get 55,000 calls a year," Lecesne said. "We probably serve 200,000 kids a year. It grows exponentially.

Storytelling is second nature to the playwright. "I heard it described as 'equipment for living,'" Lecesne said. "It's what you need in order to live, right? When my mother got Alzheimer's it really brought my family together in community in a new way. We got to tell our stories to each other. That created a new story about caring for our mother.

"Sometimes illness can give one another a chance to be closer," he said.

"I heard someone say everybody's dealing with it. A grandparent, a parent. We're all trying to figure out how to assist an aging population without a safety net or blueprint," Lecesne said.

In Dottie's world, the past is quickly fading and her failing memory causes tension. "Alzheimer's is becoming more and more discussed out there in the world," Lecesne said. "We're all dealing with this. I don't want to get all soapboxy but like many people on this planet I have a real concern about mother earth. The mother becomes invisible in the play."

Another critical plot point involves a tribe from Colombia that inspired THE MOTHER OF INVENTION. "It really happened," Lecesne said of the otherworldly story thread running parallel. "I saw a documentary ages ago produced in the '80s about this tribe that came down from a mountain with a message. That story never left my mind, it was a gift."

There will be no spoilers here.

Lecesne, from Bergen County, New Jersey, remembers torturing his sisters with his own creationism tale. "I would tell the story of my birth which was totally made up," he said with a laugh. "I realized it was my desperate attempt to tell a creation story."

Lecesne performed as an adult, constantly writing and re-writing. "This is a new adventure for me, he said. "It's an amazing experience not to be up on stage. I'm watching other people infuse it with their own creativity.

"I hope people think about their own stories and how they might be barriers to living a bigger life more connected to other people," Lecesne said. "People with Alzheimer's are still people with deep interior lives."

The Mother of Invention is playing at the June Havoc Theatre of the Abingdon Theatre Company, 312 West 36th Street through Feb. 26.

thetrevorproject.org, is a 24/7 crisis hotline for LGBTQ youth and young adults 13-24: 866-488-7386

Students can text, chat and have peer counseling. The award winning film, "Trevor" can be seen on the website.

Photo Credit: Maria Baranova